Columbia researchers study intersex sturgeon in Missouri River

(this article was published in the Dec. 6 edition of the Columbia Missourian. Here's the direct link, which contains great photos, background and action info not copied here: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/12/06/columbia-researchers-find-intersex-sturgeon-missouri-river/)

Monday, December 6, 2010 | 10:38 p.m. CST; updated 11:54 a.m. CST, Tuesday, December 7, 2010
BY Katy Bergen
COLUMBIA — Donald Tillitt was in his office at the Columbia Environmental Research Center when he received a call.

“You need to come back here and look at these,” Tillitt recalls biologist and colleague Diana Papoulias saying.

The year was 2000 and the U.S. Geological Survey research center on New Haven Road was dissecting shovelnose sturgeon from a site south of Columbia in the Missouri River. By studying the reproduction of the species, scientists hoped they could shed light on decreasing populations of a similar but endangered species — the pallid sturgeon.

When Tillitt looked inside the fish before him he saw ovarian tissue — black eggs — growing around white testicular tissue. It had the fully developed sex organs of both a male and a female sturgeon.